Mirror of Alternates
by Tedd.E.Bare
Summary: "Love is weakness", she's always been told. So what happens when the Mirror of Alternates turns up in Storybrooke? What if there was a way to see what your life would have been like if you had just made the other choice? (completed one-shot and outtakes)
1. Chapter 1

"Love is weakness", she's always been told. So what happens when the Mirror of Alternates turns up in Storybrooke?

_What if there was a way to see what you're life would have been like if you had _just_ made the other choice?_

0-0-0-0

The odds and ends that fill Gold's pawn shop could rival the quantity of things in the chamber of Dangerous Things that Rumplestiltskin had in his Dark Castle. Regina waves her hand over the locked door; he still relies on flimsy locks to keep out intruders.

A strange urge had come over Regina as she walked away from the reunion at Granny's Diner. Instead of heading home to Mifflin Street, or to her office at the council chambers, her feet take her to the place her mother died. She's not there for reminiscing, or to seek revenge for a heart that is once more breaking.

After stepping inside, she stops, taking a moment to look around at the countless items, jewellery and knick-knacks that people have bartered away over the years in various deals with the Dark One. Her eyes are drawn to something taking pride of place in front of the register, a heavy duty mirror covered in a sheet, ominous black spikes around the edge, and on one side there is an indent in the shape of a hand, with a solitary spike in the centre of the palm.

A deep intake of breath and she's stepping forward, ripping the sheet from the mirror, revealing a grey whirling mist in the glass. She knows what this is, has read about it her various books on magic, the ancient runes talking of a magical looking mirror that shows one their alternate path in life. Regina remembers reading Harry Potter to Henry, they having started enjoying the first few books a little under a year before he ran away to Boston to find Emma. The Mirror of Erised made her think of it then, a mirror that could show a person their innermost desires, something Regina felt was more poetic than what the real mirror could do.

The magic books always spoke of the Ultimate Choice, the one decision that a person makes in their life that changes their direction. Regina always felt that was silly, with life being full of decisions, why is it only one that changes your life's course?

The door bell jingles behind her, but she doesn't turn to see who has followed her, their voices likely to give them away soon enough.

'Regina, what're you doing?' calls Snow from behind, 'what is that thing?'

Baby Neal gurgles in his mother's arms, and still without turning, she can discern that Snow is joined by her Charming husband, Emma, Henry, Hook the Pirate, Tinkerbelle, Gold and Belle, Robin and Marian. The last member of the party is an unwilling follower, but still Regina cannot turn. She will not turn, not even for her son.

Instead Gold's Scottish drawl is what she hears next in amongst the intake and exhalation of breath. 'I'd like to claim my innocence for this contraption's appearance in my shop. I felt Her Majesty break in, and followed the rest of you to investigate.'

Charming is next, 'Okay fine, but what is it?'

Unseen by the people behind her, Regina rolls her eyes and sighs. 'Well it's not your regular mirror.' She murmurs.

Gold lets out a snort in place of a laugh, and launches into a spiel that Regina already knows.

The mirror supposedly requires a blood sacrifice, that's the purpose of the macabre hand print on the right-hand side with its awful spike. Then after receiving the blood it searches back through that person's life until it finds the Ultimate Choice, the one decision that person has made in their life that altered their life's direction. From there the image in the mirror shows the viewer what their life would have been like had they made their other choice.

Tinkerbelle murmurs that the mythology is the same in Faerie history, the ancient sprites themselves having once been guardians of it.

Regina can almost feel the stares penetrating her back, but still she does not turn. Instead she finds herself inching closer to the ancient mirror.

'But if Gold doesn't have anything to do with it, why is it in his shop?' queries Emma, the ever-increasing pain in Regina's ass.

'Mom, what are you doing?' Henry finally speaks up when he notices Regina raising her right hand to the awful looking hand-shaped indent with its cruel point. Regina does not pause, or slow her hand's incline to the mirror, but she does finally turn when her fingers gain purchase in the cool metal space. Before straightening her palm and impaling her skin, she takes in the faces of those who followed her to the pawn shop.

Snow and Charming are concerned, always has been when it comes to Regina; before the curse they were concerned because _of_ her, but now they appeared to be concerned _for _her. Emma and her Pirate are wary, clearly their time in the past having awakened them to the true dangers of magic and magical artefacts. Gold is looking past her into the mirror, his gaze naught but confusion and Belle grips him by the arm, her eyes on her new husband and her brow furrows as she tries to regain his attention. Henry is looking right at her though, his eyes imploring and if it weren't Charming's hand around his shoulders, something which Regina is oddly grateful for knowing she could not soothe her son's fears, nor could she handle his embrace.

Robin and Marian, and surprisingly little Roland, tucked into the skirts of his newly returned mother, those are the only faces she cannot bear to look at, and so avoids them altogether.

She returns her eyes to her son, the light of her life and at one point, the only thing that kept her going during their year in the Enchanted Forest. As she takes in his face, his form, the subtle differences that occurred in their year apart, she notices for the first time just how tall he has gotten, how his brow is starting to look like that of his father. She knows that someday she'll have to tell her son some of the memories Baelfire shared with her over the year in the Enchanted Forest, how he'd cornered her one evening around the campfire and demanded to know what his son was like. How he shared that he had started to teach Henry sword-fighting, taking over from his grandfather in his training. Regina in return had shared her memories of Henry's first few years of life, his temper tantrums, favourite foods and all the special firsts in a child's life.

Though Regina knows Henry is not her son biologically, she likes to think she can see some of her in him, the way he gives a stink eye, the way he chews his food, the way he raises his brow in disbelief. It's as she looks at her son that she presses her palm to the spike that his brow once more raises in disbelief.

The only indication that the spike impaling her palm causes any pain is a slight tremor in her eyes, and she knows Henry picked up on it before she turns back to the mirror, the grey swirling mist imbibed with a red tint now, her blood, her life, her history is being deciphered by this strange magic mirror, and as she draws her hand away from it, the red overtakes the grey and the image in the mirror clears.

Regina can see flashes of her life playing out, the mirror working in reverse. First there is her sitting on the bench, just before Zelena took her Sleeping Curse imbibed hairpin, her hand raised to the tip.

The image changes, she's taking the heart out of the hole she had dug and pushing it back into her chest, her heart twisting into an expression of the utmost agony.

Next she's reversing her curse, farewelling Henry; then she's knocked unconscious by Pan who's using her son's body as a cover, she's in Neverland, ripping her son's heart out of Pan, she's tearing down the vines that hold her, Emma and Snow down, but Regina is not drowning in regret. She's torturing mermaids, making deals, insulting one vicious half-fish woman; she's boarding the Pirate's ship. She's crying as she feels the trigger draining her energy, she's telling Emma to let her die as Regina, she's taunting Greg as he presses the electrocuting button, upping the voltage with each round.

She holds Snow's heart, revelling in that one dark spot before pushing it back into the crying woman's chest. She's holding her mother's body in Gold's shop, mere feet from where she currently stands, she's taking the toxic heart from Snow, she's holding the servant woman's heart in the town's clock tower, she's reuniting with her mother. She's taking her curse off the well, welcoming Emma and Snow back to Storybrooke, and she's sobbing, nearly collapsing as she kills Daniel.

The images speed up, flitting through seemingly inconsequential moments in her life. Regina can hear quiet voices behind her, but does not care enough to pay attention. Little moments flick by, and Regina takes a moment to think about the Harry Potter novel, what the old teacher had said about the mirror, how wizards had wasted away in front of it, and she feels a small stab of regret for having done what she's done, but then the images slow.

She's in her kitchen in Mifflin Street, Emma behind her telling Regina that she still wants the occasional visiting access to Henry, Regina pulling out the apple turnover and handing it to the blonde woman. She's smirking at Mary Margaret as the woman cries behind prison bars; she's crushing the Huntsman's heart. The mirror speeds up once more as the twenty-eight year curse pass, slowing almost to a halt as she basks in the glory of her success, crowing over the woman who had once been her step-daughter and her near-dead husband, slows even more when she rips out the heart of her father and uses it to cast the curse in the first place.

From behind Regina, Gold's voice pipes up, 'some texts say that the more significant a decision, those closer it is to one's Ultimate Decision, so the mirror slows that moment down.'

Then come Regina's years as the Evil Queen, and surprisingly these years are amongst the fastest to speed by in a blur that leaves her almost dizzy. Regina does not regret that though, though she does now regret all the pain and suffering she caused, no matter what she yelled at the gathered crowd that had gathered to watch her execution at the end of her reign as the Evil Queen.

Also surprisingly is the moment in which the Genie uses the last wish to be with Regina always, it slows down, just in time for Regina to send a dove to her father, requesting something in which she could use to end her pain.

The images then continue at a steady pace, her lessons with Rumplestiltskin. Then comes the abuse from the King, her miserable marriage to a man old enough to be her father, his hands cruel and unrelenting as he grips a young Regina by the neck, enough strength in his gnarled fingers to still leave bruises on her fair skin. With young ones in the room, Regina hopes that these memories are as bad as this mirror will show, for she doesn't wish to scar her son by having him witness other atrocities that occurred during her marriage, especially the countless times Leopold welcomed himself to her chambers, both literally and figuratively.

Regina is out of luck though, and when it becomes clear to her that this mirror is insistent on reliving even the worst of memories, she spins and tells Emma and Marian to get their children out, and to get them out _now_. Belle follows them out at the urging of her husband. Rumplestiltskin knows though, knows what occurred during her marriage to the old King, Snow and Charming must have some idea what they're about to witness because their concerned expressions have twisted into horrified looks and Regina still doesn't dare look the man prophesied as her Soul Mate.

Tinkerbelle gasps and Regina returns her gaze to the mirror, just in time to see her screaming, clawing, gnashing her teeth as she fights to get away from the unwanted embrace of her husband.

The image whites out, and then clears to a moment in Regina's life she remembers well. The images play forwards now, and Regina knows that what she is witnessing now in the mirror is the one decision in her life that would have let her down a different path.

0-0-0-0

_She's angry, frustrated, trapped in this awful castle with nothing to amuse her, she cannot leave for the spell her mother placed is still in effect. She can only escape by magical means, and Rumplestiltskin has not yet taught her how to transport herself magically. Her husband is luckily gone, off with his sickening spoilt daughter to attend some insignificant ball the next kingdom over. Regina is trapped in the castle like a bird in a cage and she so desperately wants out._

_She slams her fists into the metal barrier, once, then twice, and on the third time it gives way._

_Regina falls, plummets down to the ground and Regina cannot bear to save herself. Better to die than to deal with any more of this agony. No Daniel, a husband that does not love her nor intends to ever try, her father lost to her, her mother in another realm, Rumplestiltskin telling her that anger and hatred are the only way forward. Regina can feel herself getting lost in amongst her grief, the pain, the simmering anger that Rumple tries so hard to make her express._

_Suddenly she isn't falling, she's suspended, Tinkerbelle's magic keeping her afloat before safely dropping her to the ground._

_She and the fairy talk, the sprite getting Pixie Dust to show Regina her second chance, the bar in which her Soul Mate is drinking at._

0-0-0-0

Regina knows now what her Ultimate Decision was, she's glad Henry isn't here to see it, glad Emma is gone, she wishes that Robin weren't here to see it too, though judging by the deep breaths she can hear him take, he knows exactly what's about to happen.

0-0-0-0

_She goes in._

The mirror then speeds up the life which Regina could have led, showing little more than smiles from her and Robin, a touch of hands, a kiss, more kisses. They're passionate, hungry and full of want. The mirror stutters, the image breaks and the story splits into two. Two nearly identical situations, but as the scenes speed up again, Regina focuses on the left side of the mirror that has them both running from Leopold's soldiers, posters claiming a kidnapped wife and Queen, deadly forced used to try to reclaim the young woman on the run with the thief.

It's on the left hand side of the mirror that Regina sees an oddly familiar scene. In the castle where Leopold lived, _in her old chambers, she and Robin are there, but he is slain, lethal swipes of the sword have felled him, and a heavily pregnant Regina cradles his head, trying to kiss him back to life, but life will not come. King Leopold stands over them; sword in hand, his mouth is twisted, yelling unheard words and Regina cries, one hand over her belly, the other encompassing Robin's body._

_King Leopold yells an order, and an arrow hits her chest, her body slumping over Robin's, joining him in death._

0-0-0-0

The left hand side of the mirror rewinds, this time playing another horrifying alternate history; _Rumplestiltskin this time, chasing them without error, reappearing at their every turn, every attempt to escape. He is snarling at Regina for her stupidity and naïve belief in love. He is ripping out Robin's heart, before doing the same to Regina, leaving their heartless bodies in a collapsed heap in the middle of their small encampment, he only stoops over their inert bodies to pick up the enchanted bow and arrows that Robin carried._

'_Such a waste,' he croons to them, 'such a waste when you ran in haste.'_

_His voice turns to a snarl again, 'I'm going to crush his heart, Regina, and then I'm going to crush yours.'_

_Both Robin and Regina are panting heavily on the dirt floor of the forest, Rumple's cruel fingers tightening into fists, fracturing their hearts slowly. Robin pulls Regina into his arms and they trade declarations of love before Robin collapses._

'_Kill me.' Regina orders of him 'kill me and be done with it.'_

_She is tired, tired of running, her love is gone, her energy is gone, and she knows the child in her belly will not live, not with the Dark One holding her heart so tightly._

_For once the Dark One does as he is told, his hand closing around her red, beating heart, turning it to ash._

0-0-0-0

The left hand side of the mirror dissolves completely, the story unfolding on the right having progressed throughout, all parties surviving.

Snow breaks the momentary silence, 'Please tell me that my father didn't just have you killed.'

Regina cannot answer, the Mirror of Alternates does not lie, but this life did not ever exist, Leopold did not have Regina killed, she killed him instead.

Rumple saves her from answering, 'It appears that even after you make your major choices in life, the little ones still have a big impact on how one's life turns out. Unfortunately there were other choices in Regina's life that could had ended it far earlier than what she made it to in reality.'

The story of Regina's alternate life continued to unfold in dizzying speed, the mirror trying to catch Regina up on the life she could have led.

_Escaping Leopold's Kingdom, regrouping with the Merry Men, saving Maid Marian from an unwanted marriage to the Sherriff of Nottingham, then seeing the woman safely to a neighbouring kingdom where she could meet up with her beloved, a steward from her father's court. A child enters the world, a girl with dark hair, dimples like her father and the temper of her mother. The child grows up, is a toddler before she gets a sibling, a boy, curly tufts of hair, and dimples like his sister._

_Regina births a third child, another boy, and has two sweet young ones already growing so quickly, the little one still nursing at her breast too will grow up healthy and strong. All three grow, playing and learning in a modest cabin that Regina has used her former position to secure. Robin teaches them how to live alongside nature, to hunt, gather, to defend and attack, Regina teaches all three how to cook, sew and spends many hours soothing hurts and ailments, kissing grazed knees and chasing after them into the woods alongside Robin. They are happy. The girl grows ups and blossoms upon reaching her twelfth year, Robin takes to teaching her archery, claiming that a young lady should know how to use a bow and arrow. Regina raises her brow at that, but with two boys has enough trouble keeping them in their seats for more than twenty minutes when she tries to teach them numbers._

Regina can feel the tears streaming down her face, but she cannot move, she feels cemented in place in front of the mirror, helpless to look away.

The scene in the mirror slows down to play out in real time, like the way a film runs on the television, or a video on the internet. Regina can sense that the age she is in this alternate path must be close to that of her own current age, and this mirror cannot predict the future, only show the alternate paths.

_The eldest child, no older than fourteen, the girl is practising her archery in the woods, little more than a few yards from home. Her name is Callie, her long, black hair tied back with a strip of fabric. She has her mother's looks, the dimples in her cheeks being the only obvious thing from her father, but she has his temperament and talent for archery, not one of her shots miss and as she recovers the arrows from the target, she senses a rustle coming from nearby._

'_Who's there?' she calls._

_A regal figure steps from behind a tree, near where the road leads to home. It's an older woman, dressed in an elaborate blue gown; her travelling cloak is of good quality, her features stern and unforgiving. Callie surreptitiously loads an arrow, but the woman raises both hands in peace. Callie's chin raises, the same way her mother's does when she is uncertain about something, and something flickers across the old woman's face._

'_Might I know your name, dear?' the woman asks._

_Callie sniffs before answering, 'I'm Callie.'_

_The woman smiles, 'Well, Callie, it's lovely to meet you. I've heard that there is a homestead not far from here, would you be so kind as to show me to it?'_

_Callie nod her assent, and after depositing her arrows in the quiver strapped to her shoulder she joins the woman on the path to her home._

'_Might I ask you name?' she asks the older lady._

_The woman smiles, picks up Callie's free hand and pats it gently, 'My name is Cora.'_

0-0-0-0

Regina takes a step back; a roaring parental instinct to protect this woman,_ her daughter_, from her mother overtakes her thoughts. But Cora is dead, and Regina must not forget that this mirror shows things that will never happen

_The unlikely travelling pair reaches the homestead, the two boys roaring with laughter as they ride on small ponies that are led by their father around the paddock in front of the house. Regina is resting in the shade underneath a tree, a fourth child asleep in her arms as she watches on. Callie calls to her mother, announcing a visitor and she stands, careful not to wake the small girl infant who had not long ago been rocked to sleep. _

_Regina stands and comes face to face with her mother, indicating to her eldest to come to her side and take her baby sister._

'_What are you doing here, mother?'_

0-0-0-0

The mirror whites out and Regina screams, desperate to know the fate of her family in her alternate life. She presses her palm back to the hand shaped indent, but nothing happens, the grey mist has returned.

The mirror only works for a person once, and only shows their alternate life up until the very moment in which the blood sacrifice was given.

Tears stream down Regina's face and she openly sobs, crying harder than when she lost Daniel the second time. The grief from the incident at the diner coupled with seeing children who will never call her _mother_, seeing her own mother alive, it overflows and sibs wrack her small frame. A pair of hands rests gently on her shoulders and Regina prays that it's not Robin, because she's not sure she could handle comfort from him, not when he is the reason for her tears. But it's Tinkerbelle, and she too is crying, tears falling freely down her petite face.

Regina collapses on the hardwood floorboards of Gold's Pawnshop, uncaring of the audience. She howls and screams her pain because there are no words; there are no words for the tragedy she's inflicted upon herself.

'I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, Regina.' Is from Tinkerbelle, the fairy drops to the ground next to her and tries to wrap the broken woman into a hug, tries to stem the shaking of her shoulders as Regina struggles to draw in breath.

The door bell jingles, the shuffling of shoes suggests people are leaving, but Regina does not care, she has never cared, because she has always been left alone, forgotten about and abandoned by those she loved. She waits for the fairy to leave too, but she stays. Apologetic for trying to force Regina into making a good choice, that would have so easily ended in tragedy for herself and Robin, dead by Leopold's hand, dead by Rumplestiltskin's, surviving in only one course, only to have to likely face off against her mother, exposing her children to the cruelty that was Cora Mills.

Regina lets her shoulders sag, 'I should have never looked at that mirror, I should have never meddled in magic, I should have died when I fell off that balcony.'

She is tempted to blame the sprite that is so intent of comforting her, but she knows she cannot, for The Mirror of Alternates shows one thing, the consequences of your own decisions.

* * *

Thanks for reading! this one's been stuck in my head for a week and I really need to be writing assignments not fanfiction right now...

Please review!


	2. outtakes

Mirror of Alternates; the outtakes.

Here are a few things that were in the very first draft of TMoA, but failed to make the final cut. Italicised indicates an Alternate Future from the Mirror, regular font indicates Storybrooke. It's mostly a non-sequential stream, each segment stands alone though if you care enough, you could see where it possibly inserts into tMoA.

As always, enjoy!

0-0-0-0

_Zelena is the one that Rumplestiltskin goes to in the end, having relinquished his grip on Regina, the combined hairs of her and the thief glowing purple in his store of potions._

_True love. The most powerful magic of all._

_Zelena is corrupted by the Dark One; convinced that casting the Dark Curse she will get her happy ending. Heavily pregnant with her first child, Regina recognises the dark green fog as it washes over the mountains, crashing towards Sherwood where she and Robin live. Robin holds her tight as she sobs, citing the worst of all magic is bearing down on them all._

_She hopes Rumplestiltskin doesn't intend for it to last._

_In an alternate Storybrooke, Regina and Robin own a small camping gear store, right by the woods. Twenty-eight years pass in a blur, Madam Mayor Zelena Oz adopting Henry, the truest believer, Emma coming to town, becoming sheriff and breaking the curse, time moves forward once more._

_Regina is driving home to Robin when labour hits, her car screeching to a halt in the middle of the road as a contraction hits hard. She is screaming, the door being wrenched open, a head full of blonde curly hair loosening her seatbelt and pulling her from the car. Sitting by the wheel of the car with Emma's hand being crushed by her own when contractions hit, they wait for the ambulance. _

_Emma walking into the camping store shortly before a storm hits, looking for replacement emergency storm supplies to load into the sheriff's car. Baby Callie coos from where she is wrapped up tight against her mother's chest, leaving Regina's hands free to pick up various ropes, batteries and tarps to hand to Emma. Robin is with Marco and David as they help secure shop front windows, taping them up in case they are blown out by the storm._

_Mayor Zelena runs in, Henry in tow, looking miserable at being dragged out in this weather, the winds already picking up._

_She mumbles on about something to do with official council business, dragging Emma away from Regina and leaving Henry behind. The boy grins, the camping store being a favourite of his; likes to come over when his adoptive mother starts a new argument with his biological mother. Regina likes having Henry around; was asked by Zelena to babysit him a few times over the years. He took a liking to her apple muffins from a young age and now it's a special treat they share whenever he visits. Now he's positively gloomy, his backpack drooping off one shoulder._

'_What's a matter kid?' she asks him._

'_Mon said I'm grounded for going with Emma to the Diner yesterday.' His face contorts to a grimace, 'we were only discussing Operation Cobra.'_

_Regina smiles, after his school teacher gave him a fairytale book almost a year ago, he had become obsessed with a theory that the whole town of Storybrooke was cursed. She listened to Henry when he first started trying to convince people, telling her that she was Snow White's former step-mother, that had she not run away with Robin Hood, she would have become the Evil Queen. Upon seeing the book itself, and reading through its pages with Henry, she came to realise that the stories inside were not the most traditional ones._

_Red Riding Hood being the wolf terrorising a village; Snow White bravely entering the Wicked Witches stronghold to retrieve her true love; The Wicked Witch of the West trying to turn Doctor Frankenstein into a monkey whilst Cinderella makes deals with Rumplestiltskin. Regina thinks this version might be a little bit more liberal than the ones she remembers reading._

_But a sliver of conviction remains, though Zelena puts the boy in therapy, and Emma isn't convinced that her biological son isn't just a tiny bit crazy, Regina can't help but feel that Henry doesn't have it all wrong. When it comes to the images in the book, the lack of detail in the faces and people makes Regina look at them twice. Snow White really does bear a strong resemblance to Henry's school teacher Mary Margaret, Prince Charming like the owner of the Pet Shelter; she thinks she is just flattering herself, but upon reading the story of how Snow White's stepmother meets and runs away with Robin Hood, the archer and thief, Regina can't help but feel a pang of familiarity there._

_Henry drops his backpack at his feet, his running shoes scuffing on the floor as he looks around, Regina carefully puts all of Emma's purchases on the counter, careful not to wake Callie, and pulls Henry in for a hug._

'_I know it's rough, sweetheart, I'm here for you.'_

_He returns to embrace, careful not to squash the baby between them._

'_Thanks Regina,' he says, 'it kinda sounds like my moms will be arguing for a bit, anything I can do to help?'_

_He smiles, and she returns it, glad to have the boy back to his normal self._

'_Well,' she pretends to think about it, 'I did make a fresh batch of apple cinnamon muffins this morning, and I'm not going to be able to eat them all myself.'_

_His grin grows, 'that I can help you with!'_

_0-0-0-0_

Henry refuses to budge, even with Emma trying to physically drag him out at Regina behest. He got so tall in the year they spent apart that Regina feels a pang of loss whenever they hug, her little prince is not longer little. But she knows he is still too young to see this, and to see his adoptive mother being assaulted by his maternal great grandfather is one thing Henry should never know of.

But he sees it all, his eyes glued to the mirror his mother stands in front of. He's seen images of King Leopold, and heard so much about him from his grandmother, but they were all good things; what he's doing to Regina is in no way good and even though Regina is looking straight at him, telling him to go with Emma, he cannot move. All he wants to do is hug his mother, to shield her from whatever horror lies in her past, to go home with her to Mifflin street, to help her bake an apple pie and have it for dessert with ice cream after a dinner of lasagne.

Emma finally succeeds in dragging him out of Gold's pawn shop, but by then the fight in Henry is gone, the years of abuse from the King has passed, moved on already to the next scene in the mirror, he sees his mother falling to her death of a balcony, and then Emma has shut the door behind them, and with a firm arm around his shoulder, steers him away.

0-0-0-0

_Cora escapes from Wonderland, it's taken nearly sixteen years of painfully bright saturated colours, and she returns to the Enchanted Forest to discover her daughter is no longer queen. Upon entering the royal castle, she sees the King Leopold astride his white gelding, frown lines on his forehead and his hairline receding even further than she remembers._

_She demands to see her daughter, only to discover she was kidnapped nearly fifteen years ago, with no success in her retrieval. Leopold dismounts and takes her hand in his own, vowing that is still doing his best to have her found and returned safely. She strikes him, in full view of Snow, and the King's personal guard. He waves off any attempt to have Cora restrained, knowing the blow was deserved._

'_I spent sixteen years in exile, in a land my daughter pushed me into at Rumplestiltskin's whispering command and I return home to find you've let her run away?' she screeches, knowing that if Regina got her foot out the door, there would be no stepping back inside._

_Leopold looks ashamed, and cowers a little when Cora's sneer does not waver. _

'_I will find her.' She hisses to him, 'I will do the one thing you should have done fifteen years ago and bring her home.'_

_It takes nearly two years for Cora to find them. Rumple provided no assistance, merely giggling and suggesting that love is a truly powerful thing. Instead Cora had to use her smarts, with Henry back at their manse with failing health, her poor, weak husband could not join her, but Cora soldiered on, as always._

_She uses her people skills, keeps them talking, offers consolation in monetary form for information, hears names and locations, rumours and town gossips, and finally hears something of value from a washerwoman,_

'_Regina's just had her fourth, little girl.'_

_Cora disguises herself and find out more from the village of Sherwood, they live out toward the forest, has two sons and two daughters, Regina married the only decent son of the overthrown Lord Locksley, the man has won every archery competition in Sherwood in the last five years._

_It's enough to go on, and she sets off to find her daughter._

_What Cora didn't expect was to find Regina's doppelganger viciously firing arrows into a target, mere feet from the path leading to the house a grazier pointed out for her. The girl is in her early teens, long black hair carelessly tied back as she fires another, hitting the black mark in the centre._

_The girl turns upon Cora making herself known, disguise removed. Announces herself as Callie, and Cora can see that she hold her bow ready to fire until Cora makes herself less threatening. She eventually comes closer, though still wary. Though similar, Callie does not have the exact face of her mother, the cheeks either side of her lips bear dimples, and the eyes have more blue in them. This girl is also taller than Regina, her arms more shapely and strong._

_Cora follows the girl the last few yards to the home, where two young boys screech with laughter as a man leads their ponies around the field, and Cora sees Regina, watching them as she sits beneath a tree, holding a bundle close to her. Callie steps forward whilst Cora remains in the shadow of the trees sheltering the path, her arrival being announced. Regina's form looks unchanged, though she's born more than one child and wears a gown not cinched in by a corset._

_Callie steps back to her and pulls Cora towards her daughter. Upon stepping into view, Regina instantly recognises her mother and stiffens._

'_Callie, take your sister over to your father.' She commands, the girl obeying instantly, hyper aware that the stranger is not necessarily someone to trust. Even with a quiver of arrows and a bow, she effortlessly makes it over to her father, who instantly is on high alert, the boys no longer giggling from atop their steeds._

_Cora takes in Regina's appearance, she aged well, and even with her children at a safe enough distance, she can see how Regina does not manoeuvre from her position between her mother and her family._

'_What are you doing here, mother?' comes the inevitable._

'_I came to find my daughter.' Is Cora's curt reply, 'I came to find the queen, and instead find she's slumming it in Sherwood Forest with a brood of little ones and a man who is not legally her husband.'_

_Regina glares at her mother, saying nothing in response._

_Cora lets out a dissatisfied "humph" and takes a moment to look at the house and expanse of land which her daughter lives on._

_Regina leans forward ever so slightly, the same way she did as an inquisitive teenager, rephrasing her first question, _

'_Why are you here?'_

_Her breath is metered out, each intake and exhalation carefully controlled. Cora can tell that Regina's rage is simmering just underneath the calm surface. She's close to the same point that Cora had pushed her to when they were at the King's palace, right before the wedding. _

_Cora's eyes flicker to the family behind her youngest child _her only child_ she reminds herself, the man has his sleeves rolled up, a black tattoo on one wrist, the bow and quiver Callie had is now in his arms, the two boys dismounted and holding onto the reins of their own mount. Callie holds the babe, wrapped up and still asleep._

_She makes a decision in that moment, she cannot rip Regina away from this _family_ she has created, if it had been one child, even two it might has been possible to achieve, but four children and the man to contend with is a small step too far. All she has fought for, all she had to endure and the atrocities she dealt with and deals she made to get out of being the poverty-stricken miller's daughter is gone. Gone because her child couldn't handle the power of being queen. At her more advanced age, Cora knew she could not handle dealing with her insubordinate daughter going back to the King, and having only recently reunited her body with her heart, she can now love her daughter like she should have done from the start._

'_I-I'm here to meet my grandchildren.'_

0-0-0-0

_Robin is hesitant to accept her idea, the opportunity to gather more gold to redistribute to the community a tempting one, the idea of breaking into King Leopold's castle to do so making it less appealing._

_Regina manages to convince him though, tells him stories of a room with stacks of gold thread, traded between her grandfather King Xavier's kingdom and Leopold's, countless jewels and necklaces in her own Queen's chambers, crowns of solid gold, a heavy burden._

_He makes a deal with Regina, his beautiful, pregnant woman that won't let the subject drop, even as they lay down for sleep, curled up in each other's arms. She can come, because it's what she wants, but they will do it when Leopold is away, lessening the risk of them being caught._

_Though they have been together for nearly two years, the King still searches for his _kidnapped_ wife, offering ludicrous sums of gold for her safe return, a King willing to pay the unasked ransom for the return of the wife he doesn't love, the wife he uses, but doesn't love all the same._

_Regina's belly swells with Robin's child, with less than ten weeks until she's due to give birth, if the village's midwife is to be trusted. The child kicks and squirms inside her, Robin's hands feeling the kicks late at night when Regina sleeps. Robin thinks the child a girl, Regina convinced it's a boy._

_Allowing Regina to join him carries more risks than benefits, but she insists that she knows the castle better than he, and knows the best paths to take to avoid capture, and so she goes with him._

_Break into the castle was easy, with the King away organising a trade agreement, the castle is near silent, most the cavalry relegated to Snow's tower on the far side of the castle. In hindsight, it was too easy, the sort that should have spelt a trap._

_They made it to Regina's old chambers without difficulty, and set about stripping the vanity table of its heavy necklaces, earrings and bracelets. Regina then strips the hidden cupboard dedicated to the crowns, diadems, circlets and tiaras she was required to wear as Queen. They have a heavy sack filled with all that glitters; Robin throws it carelessly over his left shoulder and surveys the room that Regina calls her "prison cell". It's a velvet prison in reality, lush and ornate, with plush cushions on a soft bed, a polished silver mirror and wardrobe full of beautiful gowns; the whole room is beautiful, but a cage nonetheless._

_It quickly becomes a trap._

_He turns to the woman he considers his wife, his beautiful, pregnant wife and kisses her, soundly on the mouth. He cannot wrap his arms around her, one hand on his bow, the other holding their haul, but her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him in deeper into her embrace._

_That's when it all goes wrong, a metallic twang ring out from the door behind Robin and milliseconds later a yell rips out of him, his lips wrenched from Regina's and the tip of a crossbow bolt bursts through his front, piercing his leather jerkin. The bow and bag are dropped as he weakens, a soldier coming from the side, sword drawn, slices across his chest, separating the cloth and leather like it's butter. Robin's knees give way and he is collapsing to the ground, Regina falling with him. _

_There is so much yelling, the King is being called for, guards encircle them in Regina's old chambers. Regina doesn't care for what's going on around her, she's cradling Robin's head as his breathing becomes more laboured and the blood from the cross bolt wound spreads along his torso and onto Regina's dress. _

_It was a trap, Apparently the King had received word, one of the Merry Men have snitched, or talked and they've been betrayed, he had sent out notice that he was to be leaving the castle, knowing that a mostly unoccupied fortress is a haven for thieves. And a thief that has access to the inner workings of the castle is doubly suspicious._

_Robin draws his final breath, his hand encompassing hers as it rests below his sword wounds, there is so much blood, but they do not care._

'_I love you.' He mouths to her, and then is gone, his body limp and his eyes closing._

_Regina is living a nightmare, one she lived once before. She leans down and kisses him, willing him back to life, back to a life with her, back to life the way she couldn't bring Daniel back._

_Leopold arrives and she's still trying to kiss Robin back to life, one arm cradling him, one bloody hand resting over her belly as she tries to breathe in between kisses and sobs._

0-0-0-0

It is Henry. It is always Henry. He is there when she presses her palm to that malicious looking spike, he's there when her worst memories are played out, and he's there to help pick up the inevitable broken heart after Tinkerbelle lets him know the Mirror has finished playing out its futures. She is curled up on the ground of Gold's shop, arms wrapped tightly around herself, shoulder shaking slightly and Henry knows she's crying.

Having never studied magic, though his interest in it is growing, he doesn't fully understand what this mirror was supposed to do, but he got to see his mom be the Evil Queen, so it must have a mirror that shows the past.

Gold said something about alternate futures and decision making, but Henry was ushered out just as things got interesting, Emma heeding what Regina said, making sure Marian and Roland were out the door first.

He reaches his mother, and shuffles down onto his knees, wrapping her into a hug, his gangly pre-teen arms now able to encircle her with ease. She sniffles, wiping her eyes, ashamed to be seen so undone.

His voice breaks as he says 'I love you, mom.'

0-0-0-0

_A scream rips through the camp, it's long and filled with agony, a couple of men around the main campfire wince as the scream peters out, the woman running out of breath. Female voices whisper encouragement inside the main tent, telling the woman who is in labour to breathe, breathe deeply before the next wave of contractions hit._

_Regina wasn't meant to give birth for another fortnight yet, but the birthing pains started over lunch, got prominent in the afternoon and the water broke a short time after dinner. Any food she had eaten was brought up in the first waves of pain-induced nausea, emptying her stomach entirely._

_One of the Merry Men's wives, a sweet woman named Rose, keeps a damp towel on her forehead, soothing back the hair that escapes the braid, dipping it in cool water to keep Regina's temperature down as she pants through the pain._

_Another wave of contractions hits, this time longer, with less time in between. Another of the wives is down between her legs, cloth and water prepared for the child to come, she tells Regina she will need to push soon, that it's almost time._

_Robin has been banished from their tent, one of Regina's first major contractions had her snarling at him and had sent him packing. She loves him, oh how she loves him, but the pain she's in makes her hate him just a little at the same time._

'_It's time to push.' Says the woman at her legs, 'let your body guide you as to how hard and how long for each push, if I tell you to stop, you must stop otherwise you will tear yourself.'_

_Regina nods at her midwives and prepares herself for the oncoming contraction, another scream breaks out, she grips Roses hand so hard a thought in the back of her mind pops up, concerned she might have broken her fingers, but the pain comes through again, even worse than before._

'_Push!' is the only thing that registers and it's the one command she follows._

0-0-0-0

Her hand raised to awful mirror, the spike pressing into her palm, she wants to, she wants to see it so badly.

What would her life have been like had she not become the Evil Queen, if she hadn't gone down that path? She wants to know, the sick, sadistic part of her wants to know if she pays retribution for all the horror she caused in this life in her alternate life.

Henry escapes Emma's hold and walks towards the woman he called mother for ten years of his life. He can see that her resolve to activate the mirror is weakening and he chooses that moment to speak.

'Don't do it, Mom. You've got me and the rest of us, you've got a family; you don't need to worry about what could have been.'

Regina turns to smile at her son and he grabs her free hand, tugging her away. She steps toward him and wraps him in a hug, not daring to look at Robin or Marian, both standing by the door with the others.

She has Henry, with Marian returned, she assumes Robin won't want to continue their relationship, but she has Henry, and that has to be enough.

**0-0-0-0**

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